Limburg and a red Cathedral

September 28, 2015 in Travel

I've driven past Limburg on the motorway to and from Frankfurt a few times, and always been drawn to the brightly painted red & white cathedral, sitting high on a rock and visible from far away. This time I was coming home early enough to stop off in Limburg for an hour or two and check out the cathedral and quaint streets around the town. Not a huge town, but cool for a quick diversion, and the cathedral was interesting up close, in the `late Romanesque' style and founded in 1200AD. I think the best view is looking down on it from high up the hill on the road, unfortunately it's a bit tricky to stop on the Autobahn to get that shot!

Grote Markt and Sint-Romboutskathedraal from under the City Hall — Grote Markt and Sint-Romboutskathedraal from under the City Hall

Mechelen City and Cathedrals

August 12, 2015 in Travel

I finally finished edited photographs from my last trip to Europe, just in time for a new trip leaving this week. Unfortunately there was a last minute problem and I'm now home indefinitely! Hopefully back again soon to take more photos, now that my backlog is running dry! A lot of this collection covers architecture and cathedrals of Mechelen, Belgium.

Grave marker in the floor of Sint-Romboutskathedraal — Grave marker in the floor of Sint-Romboutskathedraal

Cathedrals have long been one of my favourite subjects, I guess due to the impressive old architecture and stone work, historical significance, and they often have impressive paintings and sculptures on display from renowned artists. I really like the darker and more run-down ones in particular, and anything in a gothic style, although travelling light means I haven't always had the ideal camera equipment on hand for ultra-wide angles with long exposures on tripods etc. But I do the best I can with what I have - I had planned to travel a bit heavier this trip, but not to be right now unfortunately.

The Grote Markt / Great Market / Town Square etc

The Vrijthof - Main square in Maastricht

Maastricht Bookstore-Cathedral and Dead Giraffes

June 15, 2015 in Travel

Maastricht is the furthest-south City in the Netherlands, way down on a little peninsula of borders stretching between Germany and Belgium on either side. It is also a very old and historic city - possibly the oldest in the Netherlands (as well as Nijmegen) - settled since 500BC, conquered by the Romans in the Gallic Wars, and more recently was birthplace of the European Union and Euro currency. Forgetting the history lesson, it is also famous for being one of the only parts of the Netherlands to have hills! It was also a great city to walk around for a day last year, exploring the tourist sights and city streets.

Boekhandel Dominicanen - Book store in a renovated dominican church

I make a point of seeing cathedrals in most towns i visit in Europe, and in this case the first one I walked into surprised me by being actually a bookstore instead! I remembered after the fact about seeing this on lists such as 'most interesting bookstores' etc etc online, but I arrived purely by chance this day. It may seem a shame to repurpose an impressive old cathedral, but actually Maastricht and Europe in general has more cathedrals than they know what to do with! This keeps a stream of tourists coming through and spending money which can be used to help maintain the building. I didn't buy a book, but of course I contributed to the takings of the Cafe...

Brasseries opposite the Vrijthof — Brasseries opposite the Vrijthof

I checked out actually three other churches/cathedrals in Maastricht, each of which were quite interesting in different ways. The Basilica of Saint Servatius on the main Vrijthof square is biggest and most impressive, and I was particularly interested in the carvings and design in the South Portal (the entrance for rich people). The Basilica of Our Lady was also cool for the very dark atmosphere and interesting light. I spent a long day in Maastricht, and managed to also fit in a trip to the modern art museum over the river, the Bonnefanten Museum, which was housed in quite an interestingly designed building - as with many modern art museums I can be more interested in the building than the art!

Maastricht was a walled city, and much of the walls on the southern edge are still up, and make for a nice walk around the ramparts and through the city park (Stadspark) and the older areas of town. There was also plenty of art and sculpture scattered around the city, my favourite of which was the old Bear Pit (berenkuil) in the city park, part of which used to be a zoo i.e. an actual bear pit! I've only shown the dead giraffe and girl on top, but the pit was filled with all sorts of wildlife sculptures around the walls and bottom. No trip to the Netherlands is complete without stocking up at the supermarket before heading back to Germany, so of course I grabbed plenty of my favourite Dutch junk food again this time...

The empty bear pit (Berenkuil) in Maastricht City Park

Mont St. Michel and Minas Tirith

January 30, 2015 in Travel

After the day in St. Malo we drove along the Brittany coast to stay at small town Le Vivier-sur-Mer, in a hotel with very little English spoken, but an excellent restaurant for dinner. This town was chosen as being close to Mont St. Michel, one of France's top tourist destinations and somewhere I had been hoping to visit for several years, and doubly so since my parents moved just over the Channel from it.

Mont St. Michel is an island commune, built as a fortified city in the mouth of the Couesnon River, with a normal population of only 44 people, but over 3 million visitors per year! The hill is topped by the monastery and abbey which gives the island it's name, which has been around since the 8th century, with other uses all the way back to the 5th century. This area has some of the fastest tides in the world, said to be as fast 'as a galloping horse' - it is completely surrounded by water at high tide, or mud flats 21km deep at low tide!

The island was very interesting to visit, although I'm glad we arrived shortly after opening time as it gets very busy on the narrow windy street. Street, singular, as there is only the one winding up from the bottom to the Abbey at the top, going past all the ancient buildings now filled with expensive (200+ euro) hotels, expensive restaurants, cheap bakeries, tacky souvenir shops, and some museums in need of renovation. While the city contents may not be very exciting, the actual architecture and setting, and the Abbey at the top were much better and definitely worth the visit.

The fortified city was the inspiration behind the design of Minas Tirith in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and photographically very interesting, although it would be much better to visit at a time without so many tourists! I did wait patiently in many places for these photos, although it would also be preferable to visit late in the day for better light - one of those places you have to keep going back to, to get the right combination of weather, light, business for really top photos. Another opportunity I missed was to drive down the coast slightly and get the classic postcard photo across the mud flats which you will see several hundred versions of with a quick google image search. While I was a little put out by some touristic influences, overall I really enjoyed seeing Mont St. Michel, and would definitely go back again if it was on offer! And of course, like traffic, I didn't consider myself to be a tourist in this situation :)

Münster and the Send

December 23, 2013 in Travel

Following a long day trip to Hoge Veluwe National Park, the next day I made a shorter trip to the historic town of Münster, which was recommended by some work colleagues in Essen. Münster (which means 'monastery') was founded around 797AD by missionary of Charlemagne, and is also known for being the centre of the 'Anabaptist' rebellion during the Reformation in 1534, and also the site of the signing of the Treaty of Westphalia which ended the 30-years war in 1648. Looks like not much else happened between then and WW2 - but by then Münster was an administative and industrial centre, and over 90% of the old city (Aldstadt) was destroyed by air raids.

Unlike some other cities which suffered massive war damage and were rebuilt in boring-concrete modern styles e.g. Essen and Rotterdam, the Münster Aldstadt was rebuilt in replica of the style it was before the war. Many of the town's historical items were removed and safely stored during the war, so there are plenty of historic artifacts just placed in rebuilt buildings. These include the Cathedral's treasure stash (Domkammer), the fancy 1540's astrological clock shown above, and the wall panels and furnishings of the town hall where the Treaty of Westphalia was signed. And a funny chalice in the shape of a rooster, of course.

The Cathedral (St.Paulus-Dom) was particularly impressive with another large pipe organ to add to my collection, which made for a nice picture with the sun shining through the clouds of incense. Extra points for catholic theatricality. The Prinzipalmarkt (principal marketplace) was interesting, with rebuilt historic buildings in a ring around the city centre, although many of them did look suspiciously clean and tidy stone of course, many of the facades only a few decades old.

I also found this pointy looking organ in St.Lambert's church, where the deposed leaders of the Anabaptist rebellion were suspended in cages from the clock tower until they were dead... the cages are still there, but the bones were eventually removed! The Anabaptists were basically crazy radicals who liked re-baptising people, communal property, and polygamy and seem to be ancestors of modern Amish and Mennonites etc. They took over the whole city, but the deposed Bishop sent in his army to besiege them and after a year they were broken, with the leaders tortured and put in cages.

After walking across town to see the Münster Palace, which is now the administrative building for the local university, I ran into a massive fair set up on the Schlossplatz. This is the 'Send' fair, which occurs three times a year and attracts over a million visitors and 250 vendors and rides. It was interesting walking around seeing all the German fairground food stalls, which all looked like pretty serious business - pretzels, bratwurst, toasted nuts and candy all looked good, not so sure about the giant Herring stand! All sorts of different rides as well, including bumper cars, multiple haunted houses, a roller coaster and ferris wheel, log flume and shooting galleries. Of course I ended the day with fairground Currywurst Frites.

Limburg and a red Cathedral

Mechelen City and Cathedrals

Maastricht Bookstore-Cathedral and Dead Giraffes

Mont St. Michel and Minas Tirith

Münster and the Send

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